“Hotel Transylvania” teaser (U.S. version)

Last week we posted a first-look link to a Russian language version of the trailer for Genndy Tartakovsky’s forthcoming Hotel Transylvania. Today, Sony Animation uploaded the U.S. English language version and we have a better idea of how it works with Adam Sandler and the all-star voice cast. Here it is:

Holy smokes. This looks waaaay different than what I was expecting. It looks incredibly underwhelming… not funny. But Sony has surprised me before. So i’ll try to keep an open mind.

mike b

I think i expected more before i knew that it was a Sony animated picture (sorry, sony) but i was very pleasantly surprised by ‘meatballs. I wish they could take the story quality of meatballs and mix that with the character design quality of open season. Then they’d probably have something that would get me into the theatre.

Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs was quite a surprise to me, in a good way, its seriously underrated and overlooked.

Silver B

The pacing was great and unique, just like past Genndy’s works. The voice acting… meh. Adam Sandler sounds just as you would expect him to sound if he tried to imitate a vampire, I didn’t find any kind of “passion” in his voice acting, that goes for the other actors as well.But, this is still a teaser, I can’t really make a judgement right now; the only thing I can do is hope for the best… and that’s now hard to do considering the acting.

Lola

R.I.P Sony

wever

What? Let’s wait to make any judgement.

eD

I was hoping this would have that cool Tartakovsky style and visual graphic that the clone wars and his other stuff has. Sadly this looks cookie cutter.

Funkybat

This project has been in development for like 7 years, and Genndy was not to my knowledge involved during the first 3-4 years. I think he was brought in to get this one out of “development hell” and onto movie screens. The character designs and other elements were probably already too close to completion for him to have much influence on the look of things.

I’m just hoping for an entertaining movie. Being a fan of “spooky” and “paranormal” stuff, I am willing to give this one wide latitude, and that includes the character designs and involvement of Adam Sandler and David Spade. Who knows, David was great in “New Groove” and Adam can be funny, just haven’t seen it in too many animated films. Good luck Genndy and everyone else!

sarah

Don’t know why, but for some reason it reminds me a little bit of Mad Monster Party.

Andrew Kieswetter

As well as The Nightmare Before Christmas.

Sarah J

I’ll give it a chance, if mostly because Genndy Tartakovsky is working on it.

James Fox

It’s basically Genndy Tartatovsky imitating Mad Monster Party

Taco Wiz

The visuals seem nice but I don’t like the voice acting.

There. Once again I’ve said it so you guys don’t have to.

Also, there’s a teaser with some different footage if you go to the site mentioned at the end of the trailer.

Anonymous

My expectations were so low that this was actually a step up.

http://www.frankpanucci.com Frank Panucci

That… looks snappy and distinctive.

The style of motion is not, thankfully, the same old mainstream mugs and moves. It pops like Tartakovsky’s excellent CLONE WARS.

I watched with the sound off to avoid tainting the experience.

tredlow

Haha, yeah. The Russian trailer was more enjoyable.

Petruchio

Since this is made for a normal audience of children and not us animation geeks, this seems like it might have an appealing hook. I do think Adam Sandler sounds suspiciously like GRU… Keeping my fingers crossed.

Schultz!!!!!

Beethoven?? What, they couldn’t afford Danny Elfman?

Isaac

The trailer looks and feels good. At the very least it’s going to be a fun movie by the looks of it.

Andrew Kieswetter

It looks fun. The blue-faced guy looks like a cross between Henry Spencer from Eraserhead and Brynocki,the robot kid from Marvel’s Master of Kung Fu comic from the 70s.

what_in_the_cel

I really don’t see how this can be compared to Mad Monster Party. Aside from having the same classic Universal monsters, this has none of the warmth and unique feel of the Rankin/Bass masterpiece. This looks cold and plastic like most 3D. I was hoping there would be some inventive filters or textures to help soften it up and make it stand apart more visually than what has become the default look of 3D. The quick shot of 2D did look nice.

Gobo

The 3D looks as generic as the teaser images made it look, but whenever things are half-shown in shadow (the Bigfoot, Mummy, etc) it looks snazzy and clever. I don’t want to see Adam Sandler as Dracula, but the other stuff, I want to see a whole lot more of.

Well…. maybe we have an idea of how SANDLER sounds, but not the other voices. And I must say, he DOESN’T sound like himself, which is AWESOME!

http://www.jinhienlau.com jinnaboy

Teaser is great if you mute it. I think im gonna watch a foreign dubbed version of this.

http://Mattmaners.blogspot.com Matthew Maners

Here we go again, let’s bash on it because it’s Sony. Come on the animation is really nice. It looked good, don’t bash on the animation, maybe the voice picks okay but animation wise it is solid. You slap a Pixar name in front and suddenly everyone would be like “whoa that’s some great 3d animation with lots of 2d appeal”.

http://www.kellytindall.com/ Kelly Tindall

It is what it is. Hopefully that means it’ll be surprisingly clever, but it’s not the end of the world if it’s not.

CVG

I didn’t like Open Season or Surfs Up but then loved Cloudy…so I hoped that meant they weren’t going to go back to the main issues they always seemed to have; great visuals and animation but weak story and characters. Actually if you consider all the movies they’ve done EXCEPT cloudy with a chance of meatballs, which is The Smurfs and a series of bad Open Season sequels I’d say Sony Pictures Animation makes more duds then hits and this new film looks like another dud to add to that. :( I hope I’m wrong though!

Billy

Is there anything hackier then a comedy version of the Universal Monsters. Why does this same tired premise keep resurfacing? I’ve seen good versions, bad versions, movie versions, TV versions, what new needs to be said about this? Enough already.

Billy

http://www.animehell.org danno

It’s a cultural thing. Frankenstein, Dracula and gang are part of what we are. And Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein are also part of what we are. And Toonsylvania.

It’s complicated.

Lucas

Huh. I’d watched the Russian trailer and it felt snappier and funnier in a language I couldn’t understand. Even the visuals played better because I wasn’t distracted by the voice acting. Odd. Wish they could trust their product enough to hire the best voices for the characters instead of having to sell a famous name who isn’t good enough to do it justice and probably isn’t taking it seriously. Maybe I’ll get a chance to watch it in Russian with subtitles!

Toonio

Sony set a nice bar with Cloudy but Hotel feels a little shaky, so only time will tell.

And although this movie seems to be plotted by A.W.E.S.O.M.O. (by pushing Adam Sandler, no matter what), We have to remember this name: Genndy Tartatovsky!

Alissa

The silhouettes were nice, and the skeletons at the end made me chuckle. But why Adam Sandler? He doesn’t appear to be doing anything especially notable, just sounds like any guy doing a ‘vampire’ accent.

Still, I’m a sucker (hah!) for cheesy monster movies, so they’ll probably end up with my ticket money anyway.

Beth

His overall pod deal is with Sony so I’m sure he and his gang of regulars were easy to obtain.

Clint H.

It looks kinda fun. I’ll just have to wait and see.

DW

Why would they release a trailer where the lipsync is all off? It makes it looks sloppy and unfinished. Marketing should use the right audio or pick different shots. Or maybe they just don’t have enough done yet? Genndy might be the director, but this is most likely being “directed” by Adam. Will it be better or worse than “Jack and Jill”?

Sarah J

Was the lip syncing really off? I just thought my internet was acting up.

And nothing can be worse than “Jack and Jill”.

DW

I thought on a couple of Drac shots, they used different audio tracks. Marketing probably wanted the imagery certain scenes for the trailer, but different dialog for the storytelling..????

wever

The syncing looked fine to me….

I know that sometimes, a trailer editor will take a line from one scene and place it over another, intentionally.

DW

I’m referring to the drac shots from 36-41…but that is what they did with moving audio around. I just don’t think that’s necessary….could have cut in the audio over shots that don’t show his mouth. That kind of stuff makes it feel unfinished.

No Thanks

I can’t decide which studio’s animation talent is more wasted by what comes out of their story department, Sony Imageworks or Blue Sky…..

Andrew Kieswetter

While I may definetly see this,I would love to see Sony Animation make a sequel to Surf’s Up.